Deliverance from the Cross — Page 62
so accustomed to this procedure for many years that we cannot believe that after having performed their duty with the other two they would forget the practice, momentarily, in the case of the third body upon the cross. The ancient records to which I have been referring state that when the soldiers were notified that the body must be taken down immediately because a release had come, and that everything must be done to permit Jesus to regain his consciousness and strength if he had not passed through transition, they realised that they were not to injure, to torture, or in any way affect the ease and comfort of Jesus, but to relieve him as quickly as possible from the agony in which they found him. 'It may be interesting to call attention to the fact that no where in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is the positive statement as an observation of one of those disciples that Jesus died on the cross or that he was dead when they removed him from the cross and placed him in the tomb'. 12 Beginning with the closing years of the nineteenth century as time has passed, evidence has become progressively available which puts it beyond doubt that Jesus did not die on the Cross. We shall now proceed to set forth one item, a most important one, of that evidence. 12 H. Spencer Lewis, The Mystical Life of Jesus, pp. 270-271 62